In Chapter 3, “Get to Pushin’”, Gilbert King gives
significant characterization to Norma Lee Tyson and Willie Haven Padgett, even
more so than to Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irwin. Instead of demonizing Norma
Lee and Willie, he gives a balanced perspective on their personalities. The two
individuals’ personas are derived mostly from the judgment of others and reader
sympathy.
Gilbert King constructs the personalities of Willie and
Norma Lee through analyzing their relationships. There are a variety of
relationships he uses to characterize them. The first relationship he uses is
that between Willie and Norma Lee, the second relationship is that between
Norma Lee and her father Coy Tyson, and the third relationship is that between
Willie and Coy Tyson. There is a
tremendous amount of tension in each of these relationships. Willie and Norma
Lee married young, but were “separated before their first anniversary” (King
34). Coy Tyson, Norma’s disapproving father, did not like that his daughter had
married Willie, because of Willie’s frequent carousing and abusive behavior
towards Norma. The relationship between Norma Lee and her father was further
strained, because of Norma’s lewd behavior. The reader feels sympathy towards
Norma Lee and Willie because of these stressed relationships and their
portrayal as careless youth.
Much of what we initially learn about Willie and Norma is
based on statements from judgmental onlookers. We never get a sense of what
they are like from their perspective, but rather, we continue to see them
described through the perspective of others. For instance, when describing
Norma Lee’s lewd behavior Gilbert King writes, “her reputation around town was ‘not
good,’ according to one white woman who knew her, and ‘a bad egg’ is how
another local described her” (King 35). This emphasizes how Norma Lee and
Willie are often negatively portrayed in the pubic eye, and foreshadows their
very public position in the Groveland Boys Case.
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